Keyboard shortcuts

- Now we're staying in the "04_Prompt.dwg" file,and we're looking at using the command promptin AutoCAD in conjunction with the AutoCAD command line.Now you'll notice down at the bottom of the screenI've got my dynamic input switched on again,because I like to use dynamic input and the command line.That's just my personal preference.You can use one or the other, or both.It's entirely up to you.So what we're going to look at now are keyboard shortcuts.Now one of the benefits you have with AutoCAD, over time,is more and more commands get added tothe AutoCAD vocabulary and various variables get added,and so on, and so forth.

Now that obviously happens over time,as the product upgrades and becomes more mature.Now what you'll find with a lot of the regularlyused commands, AutoDesk programmed in keyboard shortcuts.So you can just type one letter, and then press enter,and get a command to come up instead ofhaving to type the whole command.Now back in the day of DOS, when I firststarted using AutoCAD, you had to type everything in full.That was just the way it worked.But over time, with the advent of Windowsand everything else, what you're findingis you're getting all these nice keyboard shortcuts to use.

Now I've got dynamic input switched on.So I'm just going to bring the crosshairto the center of the screen,and I'm just going to type the letter "L",like so, and you'll see that the suggestion menuautomatically looks at that letter "L".It shows me all the commands that have theletter "L" at their beginning, but more importantly,look at the top command at the top of that list.It's "L" for line.You'll notice the location there is ID.Length is DIST.These are all those keyboard shortcuts that you cantype to get commands to kick-inwhen you're working in AutoCAD.

I'll just hit escape now,and I'll come down to the command line instead.And I'll click there, let's go for a different letter.Let's go for "C".As soon as I type "C", can you see the shortcutthere is "C" for the circle command.CLI, command line input, CO there is copy,and so on and so forth.Now for all of these keyboard shortcuts,you can go to the AutoCAD help screens.Better still, the best way to lookthese up is to Google them.

Just literally, go to Google, and go for "AutoCAD 2016keyboard shortcuts", because the keyboard shortcutscan change from one version to another.There are some subtle changes, not many,but they do change slightly from version-to-versionsometimes, not all of the time.So I'll just hit escape there again.Now, up until now we've used keyboardshortcuts with one letter.What happens if you use two?If I do "PL", that automatically finds me the PLINE command,which is the poly-line command.

You'll notice you've also got there:poly-line width, and so on and so forth.So, plotter manager, plane surf, they allbegin with that "PL".But the default "PL" keyboard shortcut is for poly-line.So if I now select that on the suggestion menu,I'm now in the poly-line command.And you can see that down there on the command line as well."PLINE Specify start point"So that's asking me for the first pointof my poly-line, and I just carry-on using thepoly-line command, and then I press enteror escape if I don't want to use it.

So these keyboard shortcuts are extremely useful.They can make you a lot more productive.So if you remember just to type "L", enter,that's your line command.Hit escape to deselect.If I type "C", enter, that's my circle command.It's that quick and easy.And it's much quicker, you'll find, doing it that way,then it is drifting up to the ribbon andtrying to find the appropriate circle command.It's very strange, but these keyboard shortcuts,even though they come from a legacyof older versions of AutoCAD,can actually make you a lot more productive.

So look into your keyboard shortcuts,get used to them, use the ones that you like,and just see how productive you can becomewhen you're using keyboard shortcutsand the command line in AutoCAD.

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Released

1/9/2016

Find out more about the command line: the Windows-specific AutoCAD feature that helps you draw and navigate more efficiently in AutoCAD 2016. Shaun Bryant shows how to position the command line, customize its settings, and start using commands in your AutoCAD workflow. Starting with the basics (typing simple commands), this course gets you to a point where you can use the command line to work more quickly and productively on the world's most popular CAD platform.